


sugar, we're going down swinging

by mirrorrobot



Category: A Crown of Candy - Fandom, Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canonical Character Death, Episode 9 spoilers, Episode: s05e09 Safe Harbor, Gen, a crown of candy, this is a sad one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24675202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirrorrobot/pseuds/mirrorrobot
Summary: Jet and Ruby Rocks, Bastards of the Realm, will not die here.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	sugar, we're going down swinging

As soon as Jet hears Liam’s crossbow fire, she draws her sword but it’s already too late. The dagger digs deep into her side and it burns. Then another. The pain almost knocks her off her feet but Jet still swings her sword. Hits. Then, against her will, her knees buckle. Black spots dance across her vision and it hurts to keep them open. All she can really see in the dark is Ruby. Standing, shocked and vulnerable. Bleeding. Jet wants to shield her. She wants to stand up, draw her sword, and let whoever is in this room know that Jet and Ruby Rocks, Bastards of the Realm, will not die here. In the dark. 

Jet can tell that Ruby wants to do something. Anything. She knows that Ruby would never want to leave her behind. Once, when they were new to sneaking out of the castle, they’d gotten caught. Theo was leading them to their mother’s chambers.

_“Mom is going to kill us!”  
“Well, we were born together, we’ll die together,” they’d whispered and laughed._

Jet wants anything in the world except that.

“I...I think you should run,” Jet’s voice is small now but she knows Ruby can hear her. When she sees her sister vanish and and hears her quietly run down the stairs, Jet closes her aching eyes. 

Ruby looks Jet dead in the eye. There has to be something. Something she can cast. With the pain coursing through her body, she knows she’d never be able to draw her bow in time. Jet’s on the floor and she can’t see Liam but she doesn’t think he’d abandon them.

Ruby sees the tears rolling down Jet’s face and feels them rolling down her own. Ruby doesn’t usually have to think of the plan by herself. She _can_ but right now it’s so hard to think and she wants to ask her sister _what do we do now?_

“I...I think you should run.”

Ruby casts invisibility and runs away. Alone.

Liam drags Jet up the rope and into the pocket dimension. He tears his shirt for a bandage to stop the bleeding. It only sort of works. He looks through his bag for anything useful. Anything at all. But he remembers helping people on the ship, after the battle. He’d wanted to help any way he could since they _did_ stow away on Anabelle’s ship.

He’d used up all his herbs. He doesn’t remember if he had anything that would’ve helped but he could’ve fucking tried. As it was, Liam was doing his best to staunch the blood, as Jet choked and gasped. She looks up at him, clear eyed for a moment. If he could just keep her alive long enough to get to the castle. To get help. To find Theo and Amethar. And hopefully Ruby. God, he hopes Ruby got away. 

He couldn’t do the rope trick fast enough. He couldn't grab Ruby too. He couldn’t aim well enough. He should’ve been first into the attic. His cousins couldn’t see in the dark. If he’d seen Ciabatta first and called out they all could’ve been ready in that split second to fight. They all could have run away.

Eventually Ciabatta and his men leave _(Please don’t let them find her)_ and eventually Liam has to stop trying to keep Jet’s heart going. He cries into his hands and then he hears a voice.

_Tell Ruby I love her._

He nods.

_And tell her she did the right thing._

He nods again.

Amethar erupts from the earth. 

The only thing he can see in his blinding rage is a small red light. His daughter.

_And then the light goes out._

Rage is replaced by an icy, sickening grief. He chokes on it. 

The fire returns only a moment later. Calroy was his right hand man for decades. He taught Amethar’s daughters how to hold a blade. _His daughters._

Ruby runs into his arms, sobbing.

“Dad, Jet- I, Liam, Pops, it’s Jet! She’s-” She falls to her knees, clinging to his leg.

Amethar wants nothing more than to fall down with her. But it’s not safe; there’s no time. Amethar has lost enough family to the horrors of war.

“Sweetheart, I- I know, okay? But we have to go, we have to get to-” He stops. He doesn’t know who he can trust. He want so badly to trust Theo. Caramelinda. He pulls Ruby into his chest.

“It’s you and me right now, okay? I’ll keep you safe.”

_It’s you and me._

**Author's Note:**

> Almost cried trying to write this, folks. Comment appreciated!


End file.
